Crazy Town

"Crazy Town": The New Book About The Rob Ford Crack Saga Is An Eye-Opener

When a 44-year-old man chugs Gatorade and vodka in the front seat of his car in the middle of the day, he is not “having a good time” — he is attempting to obliterate himself, to remove himself entirely from the things that otherwise plague him.

In a better world, Toronto Star journalist Robyn Doolittle might have been the one to be flown to Los Angeles and appear on The Jimmy Kimmel Show. It was Doolittle, after all, who risked her career and credibility in order to make Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s druggy misdeeds a matter of public record. It was Doolittle who staked out forlorn West Toronto crackhouses, rode in cars with shady drug dealers and faced down a powerful political machine in order to make us aware of how corrupted and cynical the affairs of her city had become. In the world in which we actually live, however, it was Ford who we wanted to see.

The reason we wanted to see Rob Ford is because he is a disaster. Celebrity has long since been decoupled from its root verb “to celebrate” and now appears to encompass all forms of notoriety and disgrace. Even those who remain supportive of Mayor Ford’s budget-slashing intentions and populist poses (and there are many) do not — cannot, really — express any admiration for the mayor’s unbalanced and embarrassing performances.

At the moment, with crack smoking, “drunken stupors” and press-scrum “pussy” references all on record, Ford Nation is backed into the sort of corner where it must entirely separate Ford-the-man from Ford-the-mayor, splitting “as long as he saves me money”-type hairs in gloomy anticipation of the next tragicomic outburst. It is easy, in early 2014, to view Rob Ford as merely another shattered fameball, another decline-token slouching ponderously across the public stage, but what is easy is not always what is accurate. As I have noted before, absurdity provides cover for darker things, and it is these things that Doolittle’s Crazy Town goes to great lengths to explain.

Rob Ford is a rich kid from Toronto’s bungalow belt, an heir to the sort of provincial fortune that often dissipates once its originator is no longer around to manage it. In 1962, his father Doug founded an adhesive-labels concern, quickly parlaying his mercantile success into a political position in the Ontario legislature. It was the old man’s self-made ethos that gave Rob (as well as his also-politically-active brother Doug Jr.) both his down-to-business, cut-the-crap worldview and the means to employ it in the profligate manner that he has.

It is a fact, states Doolittle, that six months into Rob Ford’s first term as city councilor, he had spent a mere $10 of his $53,100 annual budget. Though Ford reveled in the image created by such figures, mocking the odd and varied ledger-entries (“bunny suit” being one of the sillier-sounding ones) of his peers, he was able to do so because he was born a millionaire. Not every Toronto city councilor can afford to purchase Easter parade costumes out of pocket, and fewer still can whimsically purchase a giant campaign RV (the “Fordmobile”) without infringing on the public purse. Though Rob Ford’s man-of-the-people appeal may have been partly based on his admirable sense of duty and accessibility (constituents can still call Ford on his private number, and he often will show up to deal with their problems in person), it was bankrolled by family money. When Doug Sr. died in 2006, the money was separated from the discipline of its creator, and Rob began to go off (or on, depending on your familiarity with drug slang) the rails.

There is a sadness to Rob Ford that is visible to anyone who has had first- or even second-hand experience with addiction. In his public appearances, he betrays the stammering defensiveness of someone who is without answers, of someone who does strange and humiliating things for reasons he cannot fully explain. When a 44-year-old man chugs Gatorade and vodka in the front seat of his car in the middle of the day, he is not “having a good time” — he is attempting to obliterate himself, to remove himself entirely from the things that otherwise plague him. Were Rob Ford an ordinary citizen, there would be no scandal, just the bitter, hedged sympathy we offer privileged people who destroy themselves.